Chapter 2
“I’m going out,” I said once we got back to the house. I headed straight for the back of the back door.
“We just got in,” Grandma said. “You don’t want to stay here with Lyric?”
“Do you notice what she’s doing right now?” I asked. Lyric was in Grandma’s arms, sleeping, with her head on her shoulder.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “Just don’t stay out too long please. I need to talk to you about something.”
“I won’t,” I said, heading out the back door.
I’d always felt comfortable in the enclosed place the trees made around me, even as a kid. I went deep into the tress. It was the only way I could feel like I was away from the world, away from the terror the country had become. I could relax there, completely free my mind of any thoughts that had been in my head.
I made my way to the clearing that my dad had found to teach me how to fight. It was the place where I still felt close to him, like he was always there beside me, guiding me in all that I did. I could still picture him in my head as he was teaching me.
“Hold it like this,” he would say as he readjusted my grip on one of the knives. “That way you can throw it well and, if someone were to attack you, your hold would be perfect for a fight.”
He had taught me a lot of things before he had died. After, I would come here to escape from my mother, who would lie in her bed and cry for days at a time. Sitting in the clearing, I felt like he was still there beside me, even though I knew I would never see him again.
After a few more steps, I was in the clearing. Something felt off, like someone had been or might still be there. I looked around, but all I saw were all of the trees with marks from my knives.
I heard something move behind me and I turned quickly, but saw nothing but small rays of sunlight coming through the tree tops.
I tried not to think about it, tried to block everything out, and took the knife at my waist. As I looked at it, tears sprang to my eyes. They weren’t tears of sadness, they were tears of anger. How could everything have come to this? How could someone allow people to lose their loved ones so tragically and not even feel any emotion?
I clutched the knife in my hand, took a deep breath, and threw it as hard as I could at one of the trees. I heard it whistle as it flew through the air, and then it thud when it hit the tree trunk. I felt powerful and in control when I threw it, like I’d be able to take anything – or anyone – down.
I took another deep breath to calm myself down, and then walked over to where the knife was stuck in the tree. It was in there pretty deep, so it took a second to work it out. But when I turned back around, I stopped dead.
Someone was standing just a few feet away from me. He was very tall with a muscular build. My hand tightened on the handle of the knife, ready to throw it if he came any closer. And even though I hadn’t seen his face before, I knew it was the same guy from town, the one who had been with the other guy who was following me. I noticed his jacket and the Directrix symbol on the sleeve.
“If you come any closer, I’ll kill you,” I said through my teeth. My hand tightened around my knife.
“Oh, really?” he asked. “I’d like to see you try.”
“Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be off destroying some other city? Or are they all gone now, too?”
“I haven’t come to destroy Chicago. I wasn’t the one who did it the first time.”
“You’re with the Directrix, so yes, you did destroy Chicago and every other city in the nation.”
“Just because I wear this,” he said, turning to show his sleeve, “doesn’t mean that I’m with them.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “How did you get the jacket then?”
“Took it off of the Guard that I killed,” he said, grinning. “How else?”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking at me again. And then he came closer. “You sure do know how to throw a knife, don’t you?”
“If you come any closer, I’ll show you what else I can do and it won’t be pretty.”
Despite my warning he took a step, and I raised my arm in front of me.
“I know you wouldn’t be able to throw that at someone. You’re probably too sensitive and it would break your heart to have to do something like that. I bet you couldn’t even hit me,” he taunted.
“Don’t test me. I know what I’m capable of and it’s far more than what you would know. You never know, I could have killed a person or two. And if I killed you right here, right now, I’m sure no one would even miss you. You’re the type of person this place needs to get rid of,” I said. I could plainly hear the anger in my voice, and I’m sure he could, too.
“Why, you little…” He started forward and I threw the knife straight at him. He didn’t actually expect me to, so it caught him off guard. He tried to move out of the way, but it caught him in the arm. It stuck deep into his arm and he hissed. He wrapped his hand around it and pulled it out, and then started forward toward me again. “You’re so going to get it.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I said, and reached down for one of my other knives on my boot.
He started to run toward me, but I was faster. I moved to the right just as soon as he was close enough to me and he stopped in his tracks. He turned, and I could see the blood seeping onto his already dirty t-shirt.
“You’d better get that checked. It could get an infection, not that I care what happens to you.”
“I’ve dealt with worse things that a cut, not that you would know about any of that,” he said, trying to keep the pain out of his voice. He started toward me again, but not as fast as before. His hand clamped down on his arm, the blood still streaming out.
“I think everyone in this country has had worse than that after what has happened these last few years. And yes, that does include me.”
He didn’t say anything, just kept walking toward me. I backed up a little, but ran into a tree. I was cornered, and he was almost right in front of me. Then, suddenly, he started to run. I couldn’t believe it. He’d been faking the entire time!
He grabbed hold of my jacket and threw me to the ground, my knife coming loose from my hand in the process. My face was buried in the dirt, and then I felt his knees dig into my spine.
“I’m not as stupid as I look, am I?” he said. His voice was close to my ear.
“At least make it a fair fight,” I said, turning my face to the side.
“How would I know if you wouldn’t just run away?”
“Trust me. I only leave if I’ve won. That’s the way this country is running itself now, isn’t it? Either you give up or go down fighting. Well, I’d rather go down fighting.”
“Well said,” he said, seeming slightly impressed.
I felt the pressure of his knee disappear as he got up. I turned over and wiped my face off with my sleeve. When I looked, he was already standing, waiting for me to get up.
“To make this a fair fight, I think there should be no use of other weapons, including knives, don’t you think?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.
“Fine,” I said, and took the knife on my other boot off and threw it to the side. “I pretty good without the knife, though. My father taught me well.”
“Well, he’s not going to be helping you now,” he said, and we started to circle each other.
“He couldn’t even if he wanted to. He’s dead.”
We circled toward each other still, coming closer and closer each time we did. Before I knew it, he threw a punch in my direction. I ducked out of the way, and then punched him in the stomach. Hard. He sucked in a breath, but he didn’t move. I took my chance and kicked him low. He fell backward, groaning.
I was over him with knees in the dirt on either side of his body, straddling him. I grabbed his wrist in my hands and pinned them down. He could have easily broken my hold, but I guess he was in too much pain at the moment.
I laughed. “I told you I was good.”
“I guess you win this one,” he said, gasping.
“I guess I do,” I said, and then beam of light shot down from the trees, falling over us.
I could finally see him clearly. He had a strong looking face with angular cheek bones and jaw. His hair was dark blond and looked like it had been lightened in a few places from being out in the sun. As he looked up at me, I could see a scar above his left eye.
That’s what made me stop. I’d only seen eyes like that on one other person. They started out golden near the pupil, swirling out to green, and then finally to dark blue. My hands slid from his wrists and I sat back.
“I knew I’d seen you before,” he said, looking up at me.
“What do you mean?” I asked, still looking into his eyes.
“You seem…familiar somehow,” he said. He looked around, and then smiled. “Can you get off of me now?”
“Oh, sorry,” I said, and got up. I didn’t know why I was, but I was still looking at his eyes. I couldn’t even think.
He stood after I got off of him. We stood there for a long moment, just looking at each other. He looked familiar to me, too. He kind of reminded me of…no, I couldn’t think that way. It wasn’t the same person.
I tried to look away from his eyes and they landed on his arm and the huge cut.
“That looks bad,” I said.
“Like I said, I’ve had worse,” he said, still looking at me. He was probably trying to figure out why I looked familiar to him. But that had me looking at his eyes again.
“So,” he said.
“What?” I asked, still trying to look away.
“What happened to your face?” he asked. I was staring at his eyes again, so I saw them trace the scar going down my face.
I laughed sarcastically. “Have you even been in this country for the last seven years?” I asked.
“Oh, never mind,” he said. “I guess I know.”
I looked back toward the path back to my house. “I’m going to go now,” I said, backing away. I walked to where my knives were. I picked them up, putting them back in my boots and my waist. I turned back, and he was still looking at me.
“Can I get a name?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.
I knew I wasn’t going to give him my real name, even though he probably wouldn’t be able to find me anyway. “Gaby,” I said. “It’s Gaby.”
He smiled. It was only a half smile, though. “Zak,” he said.
I nodded and turned away, my heart pounding a mile a minute.
Everything was still rushing through my head. Zak, he’d said his name was. But what always seemed to be there was the color of his eyes.
I walked through the back door and into the kitchen. Grandma was standing at the table, filling a bag with different things. She looked up when I was in front of her. He eyes widened.
“Rayney, what happened?” she asked, coming toward me. She put her hand up to my face and when she pulled back, there was blood. “There’s a cut on your face. And there’s blood on you jacket.”
I looked down at my sleeve. “Oh, that’s not mine,” I said.
She stared at me. “Rayney, what did you do?”
“Nothing! There was just this guy and he had a Directrix jacket on…”
“He was a Guard? Please tell me you didn’t kill him. They’ll find you before you know it!”
“I didn’t kill anyone!” I said. “He only had the jacket because he was the one who killed a Guard. And yes, we did fight, but that was before…”
“Before what?” she asked, looking at me strangely.
“Before I really saw him,” I said, looking down. My heart was still racing.
“And what did you see?”
“Him. He looked like…”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re not talking about this again.”
I sat down in one of the chairs. “He had the same eyes,” I said. “No one I’ve ever met had his eyes before. You don’t think…”
“Rayney, he’s gone,” she said. “Never coming back. You need to move on.”
I shook my head and changed the subject. “You said that you had to talk to me about something. What was it?”
She sat down next to me. “We’ve got to leave,” she said bluntly.
I looked up at her, my eyes wide. “What? Why?” I asked.
“I was talking with Lysander while you took Lyric into town to get the bread. He didn’t want to say anything with her around. He said that they were planning on bombing everything again,” she said.
“But why? We haven’t done anything to cause any trouble,” I said. “And how did Lysander find out about this?”
“Lysander knows about everything,” she said.
“What’s he going to do? Is he going to try and get out?”
She nodded. “He knows a place to go,” she said. “He was leaving right after we left him.”
“What about us? Are we going with him?” I asked. “You said we had to get out of here.”
“We’re not going with him. I don’t know where we can go.”
“If we don’t know, why don’t we go with him? If he knows a safe place…”
“That’s just it,” she said. “It’s probably not safe, knowing him.”
“Still, we’d be away from here,” I said.
“We can’t,” she said. “We’ll find some other place to go.”
“What if we don’t?” I asked. “What happens then?”
It took a second for her to answer. “I don’t know,” she said.
“What’s going on?” Lyric asked, coming down the stairs.
“Nothing. Come here,” I said, opening my arms. She came over and crawled into my lap. She put her head on my shoulder and I kissed her forehead, holding her tight.
“What?” she asked.
“Honey,” Grandma said. “We’re going to have to leave tonight.”
“Like for a few days?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “For a long time. We don’t know if we’ll be back.”
“Why are we going?”
“We have to,” Grandma said.
“But why?”
“If we don’t, something bad might happen to us,” she said. “And I don’t want that happening.” She ran her fingers through Lyric’s messy curls. “Now, can you go upstairs and put some of your clothes in a small bag that you can carry?”
“Okay,” she said, and got off of my lap.
“She doesn’t need to know about any of this,” I said after she disappeared up the stairs. “Even if she asks.”
“And she will ask,” Grandma said, nodding.
“What do I need to do now, if we’re going tonight?” I asked. “I know I need to get some things packed.”
“Don’t take a lot of things,” she said. “Just an extra set or two of clothes. I’m going to do the same, but there’s more that I have to bring.”
“What?” I asked.
“Come and I’ll show you,” she said, standing up.
I followed her to her room. She went to the dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. She rummaged around for a second and then got out a small wooden box. She walked over and sat down on the bed. I sat beside her.
“What is that?” I asked.
She opened it up. “Everything that you need to know,” she said, taking out a handful of pictures.
“Who is this?” I asked. The first picture was of a couple. The guy had dark hair and bright blue eyes, just I did. The girl beside him was gorgeous. She had light blond hair and green eyes. They had their arms wrapped around each other.
“Will and Reagan Anderson,” she said. “My parents.”
I looked up at her. “Really?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, smiling, and flipped to the next picture. It was of the same couple, only another person was with them. She looked exactly like the girl. “That’s my aunt Remy. They were twins. The three of them went through a lot together.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“When they were seventeen, the three of them were in a plane crash. They were lost for about two weeks. My mother died after they were found.”
“What? If she died…?”
“She came back,” she said. “No one knew how, but she did.”
“That’s amazing,” I said. “But what did you mean that they went through a lot together? There couldn’t be anything worse than that.”
“Actually, there was,” she said. “About four or five months later, my father was in a car crash and was shot by his best friend.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“He wanted my mother,” she said.
“What happened to after?”
“Well, his best friend was put in jail. My father recovered of course, but only after he had about two or three surgeries.”
She flipped to the next picture, which was of her mother and father. They were standing next to what seemed to be a pool with a huge house in the background. They were both in bathing suits, only she was pregnant.
Grandma laughed. “She was five and a half months pregnant with me,” she said.
“They still look young,” I said, looking closer.
“They were only eighteen when she got pregnant,” she said, and flipped to the next picture. It was in a hospital room. Her parents were sitting on the bed. Her father was kissing her mother’s forehead as she looked down at the baby in her arms. “This was the day they went home with me. My aunt took the picture when they weren’t looking. She loved taking pictures. She became a sports photographer. Her husband Troy was a professional snowboarder, so that’s how she got into that.”
“Who’s that?” I asked when she flipped to the next picture. It was a little girl who had to be about Lyric’s age, holding a little baby. She looked like Lyric, too, with the dark curls and blue eyes. The baby only had to be a couple months old.
“That’s me when I was six. That’s my little brother Luke,” she said.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking down. “I always talked to him every day. Up until the day before the attacks started. I haven’t heard from him since.”
I looked back down at the pictures. “What happened to your parents?” I asked.
“They both died about a year and a half before the attacks started,” she said, looking back up.
“We’re they in some kind of accident or something?”
“No,” she said. “They both died in their sleep.”
“So they both died the same night?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “They meant everything to each other, so it made sense that they went together. You wouldn’t have found any other couple who loved each other like they did.”
“Did I ever meet them?” I asked.
She nodded. “When you were about three,” she said. “You met them right before you and your parents moved up here. You met Luke, too.”
“I kind of remember that,” I said. “Not that much, though. I guess it’s because I was so young.”
She took at breath and put the pictures back in the small box. “We’d better get going,” she said. “Go pack your things.”
“What about that?” I asked, pointing to what looked like a journal that was in the bottom of the box.
“We don’t have time to look through that right now,” she said, closing the lid. She got up and picked up a bag that was sitting on the floor. She opened it up and put the box in. “We’ll talk about it when we get to where we’re going.”
“And where exactly would that be?” I asked, standing up and walking to the door.
“I’m not sure yet, but we’ll find someplace,” she said.
I went back upstairs and into mine and Lyric’s room. She was sitting on the bed playing with her doll that Grandma had made her a few years ago.
“Rayney,” she said, looking up at me with sad eyes. “I don’t want to go.”
“We have to,” I said, grabbing my backpack from the corner. I got an extra set of clothes and stuffed them in it, and then grabbed two blankets, rolling then up tight so I could fit them into both of our bags. I put the smaller one in Lyric’s. “Have you gotten everything you need?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. I could hear when her voice broke, though. And when I turned around, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Lyric,” I said. I sat down beside her and she crawled in my lap. She wrapped her little arms around my neck and laid her head against mine. I could feel her shaking with tears.
“I don’t want to go!” she cried. “I want to stay here.”
“If we stay here, we won’t be safe,” I said.
“But where are we going to go?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But I promise, Lyric, I’ll keep you safe.”
There was a knock on the door and Grandma walked in. “Are you girls ready?”
“Yeah, I think we are,” I said. I stood up, setting Lyric down beside me, and grabbed mine and her bags.
“I was thinking we could go to that clearing of yours for tonight,” she said as we walked down the stairs. “We’ll sleep there.”
“Have you got food?” I asked.
“I’ve got enough for about a week between the three of us. We’re going to have to put some in your bag, though. It’s too much for mine,” she said.
Walking into the kitchen, I could see why she said it wouldn’t all fit into her bag. It was a lot of food. I opened up my bag and put more than half of it in it. It made it really heavy, but I was able to carry it. Grandma put the rest in hers.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said, and headed out the back door. Lyric followed quietly behind her. I took one last look around and walked out. I quickly wiped away a tear that had made its way down my cheek. I had to believe that we would be alright, that we would find someplace to be safe.